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After Motorola’s DROID RAZR announcement this morning, users took to Twitter with a pocketful of questions. A user by the name of @Eldorath reached out to Moto about the RAZR’s bootloader and was lucky enough to get a response. Unfortunately, as we suspected the RAZR will indeed have a locked bootloader at the request of Verizon.

While the phone is definitely slick and sleek – will this change your attitude towards it?

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I’m not surprised, everyone knew that Motorola would not be unlocking bootloaders in any significant way. I’m betting that Motorola didn’t try very hard to get Verizon to let their unlocked bootloader on.

At least there’s the Galaxy Nexus. There’s no way that won’t be unlocked.

Anonymous

im not even surprised. nexus bootloaders are always unlocked.

Vaporware

Everyone here is jumping the gun IMO. Saying the bootloader is locked doesnt really tell us much. The Xoom has a locked bootloader at purchase. HTC has locked bootloaders at purchase. Those devices can be unlocked by agreeing to void your warranty if you unlock them. The fact that the Razr has a locked bootloader DOES NOT mean it cant be unlocked. We simply dont know yet. We will not know anything of substance until we learn if the bootloader is encrypted or if they will provide a way to unlock similar to how we unlock the Xoom. If its locked but not encrypted the devs will have it unlocked inside a week.

Anonymous

This doesnt surprise me one bit.

Anonymous

Doesn’t change my opinion. I didn’t want the Blur POS to begin with.

Anonymous

exactly how i felt. stock ftw.

Sp4rxx

Who cares? Though it causes a *little* extra work to get it to root, it will still be eventually rootable. You guys hang too much on petty stuff.

The OG was unlocked, and every DROID afterwards was locked … oh! guess what!?!? they are all rootable now…. geesh you guys are impatient.

guest01

meh, who cares, waiting on the g-nex

Anonymous

YES, 100%.

It also confirms my gut feeling that I’ll be ditching VZW as soon as other carriers offer LTE in my city, and time is running out for MOTO & VZW.

Anonymous

Ok, my 7 moto device run is officially over. Gnex here I come.

Anonymous

change my attitude? Yes, most definitely.

Anonymous

Locked Bootloader = EPIC FAIL.

Especially when the Prime will likely continue Samsung’s tradition of being unlocked, PLUS have ICS on it. So what does the RAZR have to stand on? That it’s what the Bionic should have been?

Anonymous

Damn you Verizon!!!!

http://twitter.com/DavisDarvish Davis Darvish

wtf? what regulatory and saftey guideline. that is total bullshit. vzw wants it locked and this is why it is locked f-u moto and f-u google because i am pretty sure at this point even though the purchase of moto is pending, you have a lot of say on how these phones should be released

Anonymous

They do have control, but it is up to the carrier to let it on the network or not. VZW says no….a phone that can’t make phone calls or 3G/4G is pretty useless, hence locked…

http://profiles.google.com/animorphed Jake Byckowski

I really do not understand why you people act like its a big deal. Those who actually do things to their phone that require an unlocked bootloader will eventually be able to do so locked or not. The rest of you who complain about it being locked and avoid the phone or do nothing but complain about it while owning the phone yet don’t explore any methods that go around the locked bootloader have no business having one in the first place.

Anonymous

And people who want to buy marijuana will eventually buy it, legal or not. Might as well capitalize on legalizing it. The point is, people who want to do it will do it, and the people who don’t, won’t. Why make it more difficult and more dangerous unnecessarily? Unlock the boot loader, let people do with it what they like, and maybe… just maybe, developers will be able to focus on developing cool stuff instead of spending massive amounts of time trying to crack a locked boot loader. That would benefit the entire industry.

Alexander Garcia

Locked Bootloader!? Who the f..ck cares!? At least the hacker community will have something to do now.

GotSka81

Once again, let us all remember the difference between “locked” and “encrypted”.

J Dub

Also…Moto blames VZW on not being unlocked. Who thinks there might just end up being some kind of “leaked” engineering build for this come out that lets the devs really get in there and mess around? Who also thinks that Moto is full of it when they said unlocked bootloaders in Q4?

Bioniccommando4231

Lets call this the Bionic v1.5 then

Better screen, but mostly the same and non-removable batt.

Dont feel too bad now and have got to get all the Nfl this season.

J Dub

I see this phone doing pretty well. It will have a huge marketing budget.

I see me NOT owning this phone.

Disappointed

I can deal with a locked bootloader, but the inability to remove/change the battery is a deal breaker.

Time to see if the budget camera rumors on the Nexus are true.

http://www.facebook.com/chris.dieleman Chris Dieleman

5 mp doesn’t equal budget camera. If sensor is crappy then it is a budget camera.

nexus on the brain

I get that Kellex started this site a year and a half plus ago, and when the OG was the schizzle, the title “Droid-Life” made sense…..I am thinking a name change is in order to Nexus-Life, based on the not so strong Driod showings lately. Anyone with me in petitioning Kellex to change the name? Nexus dash life dot com

http://twitter.com/binglut9 Brian

No

nexus on the brain

Sorry you feel that way, but I get the sense that MOST of the readers on this website are leaving DROID for Nexus (when they can, due to contracts, etc), anyone else feel the same???, Nexus dash Life dot com!

http://profiles.google.com/adamtruelove Adam Truelove

This was obviously requrested by Verizon, which makes me scared that the Galaxy Nexus will also be locked down.

Anonymous

If it is,then it’s off to T-Mobile for me. I’m not playing the locked game with them. My contract is up in Nov with Verizon. They’ll lose me….

Motorola Fails As Always!

Ahhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaahaaaaaaaa I knew it moto fail, they never keep their word only to blame it on Verizon when at the same time the nexus will be unlocked on the same damn carrier which just so happens to be who, oh that would be Verizon! Lame asses you can’t fool us any longer, moto is down the drain, nexus ftw.

Msdynamite

I don’t know about you guys, but I wouldn’t think of buying a phone that might run afoul of any “regulatory guidelines”! Seriously though, I was almost willing to forego ICS for a while just to get an SD card and Gorilla Glass, two things I believe the Nexus will lack. But the locked bootloader and irremovable battery are deal breakers. (Although I expect the Nexus battery will also be irremovable.)

Rob Meyer

Ok… So now lets leave moto alone and spam vzw to allow their carriers (other than nexus devices) to unlock the fkking bootloader! God I hate these assholes.

Anonymous

Go F yourself Motorola. I have a Droid X and you updates suck. First gingerbread update was horrible.

Davros

With Verizon’s control issues (Motorola’s excuse) I have serious concerns whether the Sammy Nexus will actually be unlocked. How disappointed would we be if our “Developer Phone” had a locked bootloader?

Anonymous

Well if this is the case,then the Dev community will have to come up with ways to force them open….

Dc3mech

And no removable battery… have fun rooting and needing to pull the battery.

http://twitter.com/binglut9 Brian

Volume up and power will reboot

Anonymous

They most likely say it is because of netflix that they can’t unlock the bootloaders since the device needs to be “secure” for hd streaminghttp://phandroid.com/2011/10/18/first-look-motorola-droid-razr-for-verizon-video/

Anonymous

How can they even say that since it is available on the other Nexus phones? Have I missed something there?

Anonymous

One it is moto and two do the others have hd streaming? Moto always uses some bs excuse as why they won’t unlock boot loaders or at least not encrypt them when others aren’t doing that and offering the same features.

Exactly. Glad to see Motorola keeping their word about how they’re going to start unlocking bootloaders. Claim it’s VZW’s fault if you want. An unlocked bootloader (i.e., a way to put Cyanogenmod on this sexy hardware) was basically the only thing that was going to make me give Motorola another chance after going through four Droid 2s in a year.

Goodbye Motorola, hello Samsung (by way of the Galaxy Nexus). A bit more than seven hours until my next phone is officially announced.

Anonymous

Just so I’m clear (as I’ve been out of the ROM / tinkering hobby for awhile), a locked bootloader simply means you can’t do the whole ROM / flashing thing? Assuming this phone is as solid a performer as it appears to be I’m not sure I care. Nor will the other 90% of people who buy phones from VZW.

J Dub

You can put ROM’s on there. They will just use the stock kernel which limits what can truly be baked into the ROM.

http://www.facebook.com/chris.dieleman Chris Dieleman

That is correct, it’s for ROM’s etc.
And again you are correct 90-95% of people don’t give a shit the bootloader is locked.

principled fellow

the ability to flash ROMS will come with time. the community that’s going to be trying to hack this phone is much smarter and larger than the people who locked it down. for me, its a matter of principle. by encrypting the bootloader, Motorola is saying they own your device, not you. if wanted to buy a phone from a company who thought like that, i would buy an iPhone.

Bryan Williams

I’m afraid some people are not fully understanding the difference between a “locked” bootloader and an “encrypted” bootloader.

I’m not aware of any phone that came with an unlocked bootloader(I’m sure there were, so correct me if I’m wrong), just some that are easier to unlock than others. Unfortunately Motorola is known for encrypting theirs and makes it 10 times more difficult for the devs to develop for. In turn, that makes it less attractive for someone who wants lots of options.

http://twitter.com/Eldorath Shawn

Good point, but for the sake of the android community, people generally just refer to it as ‘locking’ the bootloader. Because it’s closed with a key (encrypted). Still hats off to many of the developers that HAVE managed to move forward despite those (encrypted) bootloaders. Look at cvpcs, Rev, P3, etc.. they all continue to do amazing work with what they have

http://twitter.com/binglut9 Brian

No one is ever happy with Motorola? This phone is great and the thinness is sexy wouldn’t mind giving this a go

http://profiles.google.com/unzicker.daniel Daniel U.

MOTO burn in hell for lying to us.

http://twitter.com/Eldorath Shawn

Yup.. so glad I asked, TBH.. the specs and size of the device were looking like it was going to be a nice phone for my wife (the 4.3″ I’m not too sold on, tbh), but based on the fact that Moto told their customer base they would start unlocking bootloaders, and have yet to do so… places the device on my ‘No sale’ list. If they change their mind later on down the road, I might re-consider, but now it’s just the sake of lying to their customers.

Bross138

I see Eric Schmidt and Co. having a “come- to- Jesus” meeting with Jha and Co. about this, or at least i hope. Locking is one thing, but the real question is will it have Moto’s eleventy milliion bit encryption to protect their precious blur crap.

http://twitter.com/CyanDvai Aaron Strunk

OG Droid owner… I will not accept anything less then an unlocked Bootloader…
I like moto build quality but none of their current phones appeal to me since they all come with bloatware and locked boootloader.

Samsung Galaxy Nexus here I come. (would have been better if they kept it as the Nexus Prime)

Tyczj

you do realize that the OG Droid did have somewhat of a locked bootloader right….

Jake

The locked bootloader is the reason I can’t get CM7 with GB kernel to work perfectly on my DX. For that reason, no more locked bootloaders for me. Whether that also means no more Moto for me is up to Moto.

Anonymous

Droid RAZR + Locked Bootloader = Nexus 4 Me

I like the ability to fully customize my android experience. The line about “Locked per the carrier,…” really scares me though.

http://profiles.google.com/chasehammer Chase Johnson

so stupid, first droid not locked, htc not blocked, yet still they keep doing this crap. Really though what harm does this cause really? Oh right, absolutely nothing.

Josh

Motorola just keeps shooting themselves in the foot

Anonymous

As per carrier request… while verizon may wish it locked, there is no reason it needs to be encrypted…

Mikedeamicis

occupy verizon!!!!! demand unlock able boot loaders by choice!!

Anonymous

By show of hands.. Who is suprised by this?

EC8CH

cherp cherp cherp

http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/RXFWXDUWRRHCGFV6NP2SDZ7YLU Ray

And it looks like the phone will be Global

Anonymous

Bye bye Moto. There’s literally no reason to buy this phone.

http://twitter.com/binglut9 Brian

No reason? Oh the thinnest, dual core, 1gb ram, LTE, super amoled screen qhd, but your right there is no reason to buy this?

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